Palestinian Authority (PA) chairman Mahmoud Abbas, who is often described by the West as a “peace partner” of Israel’s, on Thursday praised the role that younger Palestinian Arabs play in the fight for the establishment of a Palestinian state with eastern Jerusalem as its capital.
The comments were made by Abbas in a speech at his Ramallah headquarters before participants in PA summer camps, many of which are named after terrorists who were responsible for the murders of dozens of Israelis.
"We all believe in the mutual protective force of the generations in order to achieve liberation and the establishment of our independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital...Hundreds of thousands of young men and women carried the flag and led the way, some of them who were killed, arrested and wounded, but the path continued and will continue until we achieve our independence on our national land,” said Abbas.
"You are our hope and our lives depend on you, because we see in you the future of Palestine and we see our national independence through you, and through you we see the noble Al-Quds, and this was revealed this past month in noble Al-Quds," he continued.
"When Israel decided to erect electronic checkpoints at the gates of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, men, young men, women and children from Jerusalem rose up and declared their opposition to these measures of occupation and succeeded in opening the gates of Al-Aqsa and removing the barriers through their steadfastness and resilience,” said the PA chairman.
"The [Palestinian] leadership told them, ‘We are with you and we support your steadfast stance,’ and therefore we say that the will of the nations can be realized and that is what happened at the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque. We stand patiently and will continue our national struggle until one of the young men and one of the young women will raise the flag of the state of Palestine on the walls of Al-Quds," he told the camp participants.
Abbas tells the West in English that he is against violence and terrorism, while his Arabic television channels and social media pages openly call for terrorism against Israelis.
In June, Abbas's Fatah movement issued a statement in which it reiterated its commitment to continue the violent struggle against Israel as a means “to realize all Palestinian rights.”